​Self-Care Sabbatical – Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park

The first trip I took post recovery from chronic pain was out to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in March 2020. It had been my number one bucket list item since as long as I can remember, not for any logical reason I can recall, it just pulled at my heart & soul to go out to Uluru & Alice Springs.

I’d spent a lot of years in the depths of chronic pain which prevented me from experiencing life in any way shape or form. Having experienced limited physical capacity for a quarter of my life so far, & by limited I mean lifting the kettle & driving for longer than 20 minutes, shopping, cooking, walking, sitting, literally everything exacerbated my debilitating pain.

I call it my chronic pain journey, except it wasn’t the kind of journey you plan, it’s the kind of journey that just happens to you by surprise. A very expensive, arduous, painful, depressing, extensive journey, one I certainly would not recommend. Zero stars, do not recommend at all.

I did however have my light at the end of the tunnel moment, or the light found me at the bottom of that dark tunnel perhaps. Healing found me, or I found it in the middle of the Australian desert back in 2020. Whilst the healing of my physical body commenced mid 2019 post dietary adjustment to an anti-inflammatory eating plan, the restoration of my soul commenced with my feet in the red sand at the base of Uluru in March 2020.

I’d spent so many years with a chronic pain condition that left me void of ability & void of the belief that I was anyone of value because for so many years I was not able to be or do or see anything that I had wanted to be or do or see. I was a nothingness, I felt inside myself that I was no one & nothing because years of chronic pain had taken away my being. There were other people in this world being & doing & seeing whatever they wish or desire & then there was me, imprisoned in the nothingness of chronic pain. You’re nobody if you can’t be or do, you’re just nothing.

But the desert pulled at my soul & so that was the journey I planned, with intent, I planned, booked, packed & I went. Crazy right, when I think back to how incapacitated I had been for so long, yet I was so determined to go & stand at that rock with my feet in that sand & through hell & high water I’d already been for so long, so what was going to stop me? Absolutely nothing did, so I went.

I went solo into the Australian desert & when I say desert, I do mean to Ayers Rock Resort in beautiful accommodation, tours booked, camel ride booked, QANTAS link to Alice Springs booked. I was prepped & booked & treating myself to the greatest adventure my heart could conceive.

And boy, was that an adventure. There’s little me, all by myself in the red dirt, hot-footing the Uluru base walk like someone left the gate open. It was a hot 46 degrees by noon but I loved every minute of it. Some may have been wondering what little old me was doing traipsing the desert alone, but I didn't care. I’d lived a long time by a long list of ‘can’ts’ because I 'can’t do this & I can’t do that'.

With my feet in that red, red dirt I looked up at the milky way stretched across the night sky in the middle of the Field of Lights at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park & for the first time in a long, long time I realized, I actually can.
I am. I did this. Alone. I’m here. I did it. I can.
Now, I can. Now, I 'am'.

I found me, then & there.

That part of me that had lived in the ‘can’ts’ for so long was gone. I left her there in the desert & I only came back with the parts of me that I needed from that day forward. The parts that not only ‘can’, but the parts that now believed I ‘can’.

I left the ‘can’ts’ behind.

I left the ‘can’ts’ behind & I sailed off on a red kangaroo (QANTAS link) to Alice Springs to continue on my soulful adventure, hot-footing it on another patch of red, red dirt, all bright-eyed & pony-tailed.

So, what happened in Alice Springs, Dee?

Well, that’s a whole other story, I don’t think you’d believe it, even if I told you.
But I was sung at first sight at Page 27.

Uluru-Kata Tjuta remains as my annual self-care sabbatical, to remind myself to ‘can’, always ‘can’, Dee.

You always, always can (do or be or see), you always can now.

And if I start to feel the weight of the world & the feelings of the ‘I can’t do this anymore, I need a break’, I drop everything like it’s hot, leave all of the 'can'ts' behind & jump on a red kangaroo.

The desert still sings, it always will.

Dee

xx